A wireless local area network (WLAN) is a LAN that connects wireless devices or stations (STAs). In an infrastructure basic service set (BSS) mode, a WLAN includes an access point (AP) for the BSS and one or more STAs associated with the AP. The AP may have access, or an interface, to a distribution system (DS) or other type of wired or wireless network that carries traffic in and out of the BSS. Traffic originating from outside the BSS, but ultimately destined to a STA inside the BSS, may arrive through the AP, which may deliver it to the appropriate STA. Similarly, traffic originating from STAs and destined to devices outside of the BSS may be sent to the AP for delivery to the appropriate device outside of the BSS. Traffic being exchanged between STAs in the BSS (also referred to as peer-to-peer traffic) may be sent via the AP or may be transferred directly between source and destination STAs with a direct link setup (DLS) using an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11e DLS or an IEEE 802.11z tunneled DLS (TDLS). In an Independent BSS mode, a WLAN has no AP, and, therefore, STAs in an Independent BSS mode communicate directly with each other.
Due at least to the nature and operation of at least some WLANS, WLAN STAs may need to transmit uplink (UL) small frames frequently. Such UL small frames may include, for example, power-save polls (PS-Polls), voice over internet protocol (VoIP) packets that may have medium access control (MAC) service data unit (MSDU) frames of around 120 bytes, industrial process automation in which frames may have an MSDU size of around 64 bytes, and packets that include data on web browsing clicking that may have MSDU frames of around 64 bytes.